


'Cause you're a sky full of stars (I'm gonna give you my heart)

by komkommertijd



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Falling In Love, Friendship, Galaxies, Idiots in Love, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Space Shenanigans, Spaceships, Swearing, they're all idiots really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:33:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23240275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komkommertijd/pseuds/komkommertijd
Summary: The viewscreen on the main deck has dead pixels in the upper right corner and Daniel slowly thinks that it's driving him insane. It doesn't help that none other but Charles Leclerc is sitting next to him on Max's seat, legs kicked up to rest on the table. It drives him insane how chill Charles seems with the whole situation, almost as if he's making fun of Daniel. He has always been the better commander out of the two of them, hell, Charles calls himself captain and that's not very professional at all, but it's hard not to compare himself to Charles.OrGlimpses of the life of crew members of the spaceship Exodus and the chaos that ensues.
Relationships: Charles Leclerc/Daniel Ricciardo, Charles Leclerc/Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo/Max Verstappen, Kimi Räikkönen/Sebastian Vettel, Lando Norris/Carlos Sainz Jr, Pierre Gasly/Charles Leclerc, Valtteri Bottas/Lewis Hamilton
Comments: 13
Kudos: 44





	'Cause you're a sky full of stars (I'm gonna give you my heart)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scarletred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletred/gifts).



> I stayed awake the whole night to finish this, send help.
> 
> I wanted to gift this to [scarletred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletred/pseuds/scarletred) because it's space-related and who else would I gift it to in that case? (Thank you for inspiring and motivating me to finish his old draft and thanks for always providing me with amazing content, please don't hate me now sjsjjss)
> 
> The title is from Coldplay's A Sky Full of Stars because creativity kicks at 6 am.
> 
> Have fun with reading this now :)

It's quiet when Max makes his way down the hallway, which is generally never a good sign in his environment, surrounded by noisy and idiotic crew members. The Exodus is usually lively and filled with the playful banter of Max's co-workers, so the silence feels almost threatening. There's a faint buzzing of the machines surrounding him, filling his ears as the only source of noise, oddly comforting.

On second thought the silence makes sense when Max enters the deck and gets to watch a major panic break lose. The crew members are running around frantically, shuffling past the monitors and control panels, arguing about the things displayed on their tablets and swiping through holograms. When he opens the soundproof doors, he realizes that they are doing a pretty amazing job because he immediately feels as if his ears are falling off. 

Lando runs into him, barely avoiding tackling Max to the floor, smiling at him apologetically before rushing to get to the next monitor. Daniel is cursing loudly, which makes it pretty easy for Max to spot him even in the chaos. He finally manages to reach the commander and takes a deep breath before tapping his shoulder and when Daniel turns around and looks Max dead in the eye, desperation mixing with brown and invading deep blue in the bright light of the main deck, Max just finds the confirmation that something went extremely wrong. 

"Help me, I don't know what to do anymore."

And who is Max to deny his commander? Besides, he's the payload commander, he can't really say no when Daniel asks him for help anyways. So Max just nods and takes another deep breath.

And then he shouts. He shouts louder than he has probably ever shouted before and suddenly the room goes quiet and he feels like he's back outside and alone in the hallway. Everyone turns around to look at him and Max has never felt this small before in his blue uniform, the collar of it almost choking him with all attention on him.

"Can someone tell me what the actual fuck is going on?"

"Sir, I'm sorry but we detected a virus on the main operating system. The computer crashed and we have no access to our network", one of the computer scientists replies. 

Well, that's something Max doesn't have a solution for. He looks back at Daniel, who looks just as clueless, shrugging at his payload commander. A fucking virus. How did that even happen? They are using the latest technology, employed the best computer scientists on their side of the universe and they check the system every day. It just doesn't make sense.

The door bursts open again and Lando enters, a tablet in hand and an almost unreadable expression on his face. His entry is dramatic to say the least, the glass doors opening automatically thanks to the sensors in front of him. He slams his hand down on the table, earning a warning glance from Daniel for that action, and then he struggles to put the tablet down before he lifts his arm triumphantly. There's a bright orange chip in his hand and exactly no one knows what's going on. Max didn't even notice Lando leaving in the first place, so his return only adds to his confusion.

"Someone", Lando begins, making an unnecessary long and dramatic pause while looking around the room, "downloaded porn. That's where the virus comes from. I'm not telling any names, but our lower deck ensigns might want to check which websites they're using. Seriously, guys, it's not that hard."

He ends his speech with a solemn handover of the chip, placing it in Daniel's open palm.

"It's a virus from Galaxy VF-20, I extracted it from our database and removed it from the system. I'll leave it to our commander to, I don't know, burn it or whatever. But come on, whoever's responsible for this, VF-20 doesn't even make good porn. It's trash."

"Pierre, could you maybe explain to me why Charles fucking Leclerc wants to have a video conference with you?"

Daniel bursts into the biology lab, a holographic message glowing next to his arm, the watch around his wrist displaying the message he's probably talking about. Pierre drops the water spray bottle at the mention of the familiar name, turning his attention away from the organic plantation to give his commander a sheepish look.

"Well, uhm, maybe my Quinx ran over the keyboard last night and sent him a message?"

"How the fuck did a cat-"

"A Quinx", Pierre interrupts, his voice sounding a lot smaller than before.

"Whatever the fuck your pet identifies at, how did its keyboard smash autocorrect to that?"

Pierre stares at the hologram Daniel is shoving into his face and it makes his stomach drop while his ears and cheek turn hot simultaneously. He did notice his pet doing weird stuff in the lab last night, but he didn't know that it managed to do that. Quinxes are known for being intelligent, but they can't read and they certainly aren't matchmakers.

Yet Pierre is looking at a fucking marriage proposal to Charles Leclerc of all people. Of all people in the entire universe, it had to be the most dangerous and influential rebel and bounty hunter from Galaxy SF1000. Sometimes Pierre thinks his fate really hates him because the universe obviously does. He stares at Daniel, panic visible in his eyes. The commander just shrugs and walks back to the lab door. So he's not going to help the biologist then.

"Come on, Gasly. Hurry up, you have a wedding to attend."

Carlos started working at the Exodus... a few years ago, he doesn't even remember when exactly he let this chaos of a crew adopt him. He just knows that he doesn't really get bored of his job as a flight engineer, always entertained by the banter between Pilot Hulkenberg and Commander Ricciardo. He makes sure that they don't crash and tries not to crush on the computer scientist in charge of the main operating system at the same time. 

He works night shifts sometimes, although it's always night time in the endless space of the ever-expanding universe, so he gets to talk to Max a lot, the payload commander of their science department. Max is nice and he celebrates the milestones of their work with Carlos. He seems almost carefree then, not as serious when he's sitting next to the commander with his jaw clenched and a serious expression gracing his features. Carlos can't really get behind that, but besides that, they get along just fine.

Lando is funny and kind, always helpful and patient when he needs to explain something to other computer scientists, even though Carlos can clearly see the annoyance and desperation in his eyes. He remembers the porn incident and smiles at the thought. It was the first time he ever witnessed Lando being this weird kind of confident and ironic at the same time. There's no side of Lando he dislikes and it concerns him a little.

They've been stuck in the goddamn elevator for an hour already and so far it has been awkward. Daniel lets the engineers repair the teleporter, so the crew is forced to use the elevator that could definitely need an update as well. His stomach growls while Lando inspects the info panel next to the buttons. Getting stuck on their way to dinner sucks and Carlos really wants food. 

"Give me a minute, I bet I can figure this out- no wait, I can't. Sorry Carlito, I guess we're stuck in here until I can get someone to move their lazy ass away from the dinner table to save us."

Carlos lets his head fall back to rest against the cool metal of the wall, praying that he will make it out alive. Not because he doesn't have food or water but because he fears that his heart might stop when having Lando so close. After another fifteen minutes of trying to escape the elevator, Lando gives up and sits down next to Carlos.

It's quiet for a while. There's not much they could talk about.

"You're from planet Terra Alpha, right? Tell me about it, I've never visited it before."

So Carlos starts talking about growing up on Earth, about his family and space organizations from his home planet and they laugh together about the weird perspective the humans have on the universe that surrounds them. Lando talks about the five moons on the night sky of his home planet and of animals Carlos has never even heard about. It seems to make Lando miss him home, he talks very highly about his culture and sighs when he leans over to rest his head on Carlos's shoulder. It makes his heart jump and he keeps quiet. They both dwell on their own thoughts for a while.

When the door opens two hours later and Daniel stares down at the two of them sitting on the floor with one eyebrow lifted, Lando is asleep on his shoulder and Carlos doesn't really dare to wake him up. 

"So I guess I have to annoy the engineers with this problem as well, huh?"

It takes Carlos a minute until he figures out which problem Daniel is talking about.

Charles doesn't think he will be able to live through this again.

It's the third time in an Earth week that Lewis complains about the tiniest inconvenience and Charles is tired of it. They are currently hanging around somewhere in Galaxy AT01, Charles hasn't checked the map for a while now so he doesn't really have a clue where they are, and the noise of George's Gameboy is slowly getting on his nerves. Sometimes he regrets working with two humans. He regrets leaving Exodus, but that's a thought he wants to take his mind off as quickly as he can. He turns on the intercom and checks the latest messages.

"This is Valtteri Bottas. Location unknown. It's been twenty-one years and thirty days since I lost contact with Aquila. I think. I don't- fuck, I don't know. I'm scared. Please help me. I came from planet Earth and I only have peaceful intentions, please, please if you hear me, help me."

The connection dies and Charles blinks twice until his brain catches up. He jumps up and starts tapping various buttons frantically just to do something, anything really, just to get the connection back.

"Valtteri, it's Charles, Charles Leclerc. I'm captain of the Redwing. Can you hear me? Valtteri? Valtteri, can you hear me?", Charles asks while continuing to hit buttons on the panel, trying to track down the stranger in need. Panic bubbles in his chest when the line stays dead and the hope leaves his body, taking the adrenaline with it and leaving Charles with fear and despair and trembling fingers. 

"Valtteri, please respond if you hear me, please respond."

The line stays dead. He sinks back in his chair and tries to calm down, his hands still trembling and his breath barely slowing down, still racing against his heartbeat.

"Charles? Charles? I can hear you, please help me."

He shuffles to get back to the intercom and he feels cold sweat running down his back from all the different emotions hitting him at once. He turns back to the map while he speaks, hurrying to get everything across before the connection dies. He could save a human being. Lewis would stop whining for once and one more human in his crew couldn't be too bad. He could save that guy.

"Valtteri, please stay calm, alright? I'm currently tracking down your location, try not to move too much. You're safe, I'm coming to get you."

A blue dot appears in the corner of the map and Charles is so happy he almost screams. He turns on the engine and the computers and targets the dot. The intercom is still turned on and Charles starts buzzing with excitement.

"I'm in a rescue capsule, I can't accurately control where I'm going, I'm sorry."

"It's fine, I'm almost there. Can you dock?"

"Yeah, I think so. Thank you so much, Charles."

The viewscreen on the main deck has dead pixels in the upper right corner and Daniel slowly thinks that it's driving him insane. It doesn't help that none other but Charles Leclerc is sitting next to him on Max's seat, legs kicked up to rest on the table. It drives him insane how chill Charles seems with the whole situation, almost as if he's making fun of Daniel. He has always been the better commander out of the two of them, hell, Charles calls himself captain and that's not very professional at all, but it's hard not to compare himself to Charles.

He doesn't even know when the Redwing arrived, currently resting in the paddock where the Exodus engineers take care of it, but he surely knows that the chaos on his spaceship became worse the second they requested to dock. Charles said something about Lewis having to talk to Kimi because of some random guy they saved from space and that was all the explanation he got. And now Charles was sitting on Max's chair and judging his work.

The captain explained the entire story of how they saved Valtteri from dying and talked about Galaxy SF1000 at the dinner table when the whole crew was in one room. Daniel did not miss the way Seb automatically flinched at the mention of his home and the silent comfort he got from Kimi almost made the commander lose his appetite. He learned quite a lot about the human race that evening and he snorted when Lando started betting whether Lewis had a crush on the new Redwing crew member.

Lando got to skip his night shift for the next two weeks and Daniel didn't need to elaborate that issue any further.

The thoughts and memories of their shared past make him want to vomit and all Charles does is continuing to smile like an idiot. He jokes around with Max and makes Pierre blush on a daily basis and Daniel just wants to get rid of him.

And then there are the dead pixels. Neither Lando nor the engineers find a way to fix it for the time being and he can't help but to look at it whenever he enters the main deck. Charles occupies Max's seat more often than not and Daniel tries to focus on his work. He has a spaceship to run, goddamnit. Nico doesn't comment verbally on his behavior, but Daniel just knows that his idiot friend of a pilot judges him silently. Charles just came back like nothing has happened and started flirting with Max and now he's all over Daniel's workplace and he hates it so much he almost punches his wall one night, only avoiding it as to not wake up Max who's still sharing a cabin with him and not Captain Charles fucking Mister Perfect Leclerc.

"The dead pixels are slowly driving me bonkers, Maxy."

The payload commander just snorts and moves past Daniel to sit down in his seat and for once it's not occupied by some random rebel from Seb's home galaxy. It feels better, it looks right. Daniel follows without another word and sits down as well, trying to get comfortable in a truly uncomfortable situation.

"It's not the goddamn pixels, Dan. It's Charles who's driving you crazy."

The way Max says it, with amusement in his voice and such a carefree expression as if he doesn't care about the whole situation, makes Daniel angry. It disappoints him. He stares at the black spots on the viewscreen. Fucking Charles Leclerc. He denies it, he's denied it ever since Charles put his dirty shoes on his spaceship, and now he says it out loud for the first time and it sounds pathetic, like a child backtalking.

"Of course that's true. Charles came back and now he's flirting with me again and you're still not over him so it pisses you off. You're jealous, Dan, you don't care about the stupid pixels."

Daniel wants to slam his head against the map panel until either his skull or the electronics shatter. He's frustrated and he feels despair mixing with the jealousy in his body.

"I'm not jealous because I'm not over that dickhead, I'm jealous because I'm in love with you and this asshole just decides to come back and fuck with our heads again and you're too blind to see it. Fuck you Verstappen, you and Leclerc, and those fucking pixels."

He throws his headset on the table and gets up as forcefully as he can without breaking anything. He hands the control over to Nico before he leaves the main deck. He wishes he could slam a door now, just to be petty. He doesn't look back and he's pretty sure Max is not even looking after him either. 

The pixels are working again the next day and he hugs Lando for fixing it. At least technical issues were fixable. He interrupts Kimi's dinner date with Seb in search of comfort that evening and Sebastian figures out a way to get rid of Charles and his squad of idiotic humans.

Drinking with Carlos and Lando is a fatal idea. Max has to learn that the hard way.

He spent one Earth week trying to figure his feelings out after Charles left, reliving the future and silently crying himself to sleep at night. Lando, of course, noticed his bad mood and now he's sitting on Carlos's bed with a bottle of Quinton-18 alcohol in his hand and tears running down his cheeks because the realization of "I fucked up badly" is a little harder to stomach than the liquor. He's confused and he feels lonely, even with Lando's arm wrapped around his shoulder. Lando seems a lot more drunk than Max and he thanks his species for the skill to drink himself into oblivion without being drunk after two shots of crappy alcohol. Carlos is a human and humans do terrible with alcohol. He's already asleep, mind hazy from the liquor.

Lando gets extremely clingy when he's drunk and Max really wishes his boyfriend was still awake so he could cling to him instead. The thought itself is enough to make Max feel lonely again. Lando has Carlos. Sebastian has Kimi. Pierre has his weird pet. Even Lewis and that weird Valtteri guy have each other. And all Max has is a broken heart and regret on his mind. He hates it and he hates Charles for fucking things up. 

He groans when the door of the bedroom opens and the light from the hallway bathes the room in white, his mind slightly fogged and the tears tiring his brain and muscles out. He knows he looks pathetic with the bottle in one hand, his hair all messed up and Lando almost drooling on the dark blue uniform he's still wearing for some reason.

"Come on, let's get you to bed."

Max doesn't complain, he just buries his head on Kimi's shoulder and lets himself be carried down the hallway, back to his own bed. Kimi smells like human alcohol and Sebastian and Max is not surprised.

"I love him", he murmurs into the fabric of Kimi's hoodie, another sob escaping his lips and he knows he's acting pretty drunk right now but he feels soberer than ever before at the same time.

"I know, kiddo. It's alright."

He looks outside, into the empty darkness that surrounds the spaceship and curls into himself underneath the soft sheets. His tears are slowly drying when he sees a planet passing by. It reminds him of home and how he used to cry himself to sleep as a child as well. He doesn't think that much has changed since then. He's a payload commander, the head of their science department, but he still feels like a child. He misses his home, although he feels more at home on the spaceship anyway. He misses warm hugs, late-night talks, laughter, and love. He misses-

"Daniel."

**Author's Note:**

> Here are a few more remarks before I will finally leave you alone.
> 
> (1) All titles used in this story (commander, payload commander, etc.) besides captain are used by the NASA as well if I'm not wrong (if I am, thanks for nothing Wikipedia). Should I use them incorrectly, I'm sorry.  
> (2) Exodus is not based on the bible but inspired by a K-Pop group and even typing that now makes me cringe. Redwing was inspired by the Detroit Redwings because I love ice hockey, sue me.  
> (3) All the galaxy names are obviously chassis names because I'm creative af and I kind of liked it that way.  
> (4) I called planet Earth Terra Alpha here because it just felt more universal than simply Earth. Does the Alpha imply that there's more than one Earth? Maybe.  
> (5) I have no real explanation for the Quinx and the weird alcohol name. I just figured that not everyone would like human booze and animals from Earth.  
> (6) The human race is obviously not superior here, as you may have noticed? Earth is far away and the humans are just one species of millions, let's not get too cheeky here.  
> (7) Viruses and general stuff concerning electronics and informatics work differently than they do on Earth, that's why Lando literally just removed the virus from their server.  
> That's it! Thank you so much for reading this until the very end, I hope you enjoyed it. If you did (or even if you didn't), feel free to leave me some feedback, I always appreciate it. <3


End file.
